Educational technology has become an essential tool for the academic community at Furman. Faculty need quality computing facilities to keep current in their disciplines and be effective in the classroom. The rapid pace of technological innovation makes it imperative for Furman to plan carefully its purchases, allocations, and training programs so that all members of the faculty and academic staff can take advantage of improvements as they occur.

B. Policy

The University will take all reasonable steps to ensure that faculty and academic staff members receive the appropriate equipment and training required to accomplish their assigned tasks. Priority will be given to those equipment needs which have immediate classroom applications.

C. Guidelines

1. Furman University will supply faculty and academic staff with standard desktop configurations (including network access) that meet established performance criteria. Compatibility and performance demands require that the institution also establish a regular replacement schedule for hardware and software. Likewise, Furman should seek to keep all institutionally supported software within one major revision of the manufacturer's most current version. The Academic Computing Committee, in conjunction with the Chief Information Officer, will recommend to the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean the standard configuration packages, performance criteria, and replacement schedules for faculty and academic staff with different needs and at different levels of usage.

2. Information Technology Services will seek to provide faculty and staff with timely response to problems with hardware, software, and university-supplied network services. It will provide rapid and professional support for its standard Windows, Macintosh, and Unix hardware platforms, and all supported software. Faculty members are not required to provide technical and maintenance services for any standard configurations supported by Furman. Departments with specialized computing needs may recommend joint positions with Information Technology Services.

3. Information Technology Services will seek to provide a regular, comprehensive, and anticipatory training program for faculty and academic staff. Special attention will be paid to the application of information technology to advanced and discipline-specific classroom applications.

4. Equipment will be allocated to individual users, departments, and academic divisions according to a comprehensive and equitable equipment request system.

5. The University will seek to make available "technology-ready" classrooms, (library facilities) network services, and other electronic teaching resources to all faculty that require them.

6. The University will seek to make available for faculty and academic staff a select number of workstations, file-servers, and specialty input and specialty output devices such as scanners, cameras, audio devices, printers, plotters, and CD burners, housed in conveniently located faculty workrooms.

7. Furman University will aid faculty and academic staff to fund experiments with new, "high-end," and high performance technology tools. It will also seek to provide an effective means for these individuals to offer training and expertise to the university's mainstream users. The Academic Computing Committee will advise the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean and the Chief Information Officer in selecting which projects to fund.

8. Information Technology Services will regularly inform its user communities of all publicly-available resources, discount, and purchase programs. It will also publicize information about useful techniques and applications being developed by members of the faculty and staff.